Comparative criminal justice - Essay Example

Comparative Criminal Justice Corruption continues to be a serious crime that affects several countries in the world. However, since Transparency International started ranking countries using corruption perception index, the rate of crimes has decreased considerably. However, countries facing persistent poverty, political volatility, as well as high crime rates continue to portray high rates of corruption. The Transparency International uses Corruption Perception Index, which communicates the rate of corruption as perceived by businesspersons as well analysts in a country.

In the 2007, Denmark, Bolivia, and Myanmar the countries whose crime rates will be compared in this paper were ranked at position 1, 105, and 179 respectively. The ranking was done on 179 countries from the least corrupt to the most corrupt. The corruption perception index was 9.4 for Demark, which the least corrupt, 2.9 for Bolivia, and 1.4 for Myanmar, which was ranked as the most corrupt among the countries, studied (Transparency International Web). This paper will focus on comparing the official crime rates of bribery, and drug offences per 100,000 in Denmark, Bolivia, and Myanmar.

The paper will analyze the degree of cross-national differences and try to explain the differences in crime rates in the three countries.Bribery and drug offences are two crimes that are illegal in addition to involving a lot of corruption. The eighth United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, which was done for the period between 2001 and 2002, showed that these crimes are still persistent (United Nations Web).In 2001, 37,553 crimes were committed in Bolivia, which is equivalent to 435.

80 crimes per 100,000 inhabitants. Crimes were higher in Denmark where a grand 473,290 crimes were committed in 2001, which equates to 8,831.69 crimes per 100,000 inhabitants. In Myanmar, 19,873 crimes were reported which equates to 41.24 crimes per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2002, the total number of crimes declined in Myanmar and Bolivia but increased in Denmark. The total numbers of crimes were 18,301 in Myanmar, 31,138 in Bolivia and 491,026 in Denmark. In relation to bribery and drug offences, Bolivia had the highest number of crimes per 100,000 inhabitants in both 2001 and 2002.

The records by the United Nations shows that out of every 100,000 inhabitants 0.22 and 0.28 bribery crimes were recorded in Bolivia in 2001 and 2002 respectively. In case of Denmark, there were 0.09 and 0.07 bribery crimes for the years 2001 and 2002 respectively. Though ranked as the most corrupt country in 2007, Myanmar had a record of 0.02 and 0.01 bribery crimes per 100,000 inhabitants for the years 2001 and 2002 respectively. The same trend was exhibited in case of drug offences with Bolivia having 38.40 and 44.70 crimes per 100,000 inhabitants in 2001 and 2002 respectively.

Denmark had a record of 16.59 and 19.59 while Myanmar had 6.07 and 5.88 drug crimes per 100,000 inhabitants for 2001 and 2002 respectively (United Nations Web). In the three countries, Bolivia demonstrates the highest crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants followed by Denmark then Myanmar. The bribery and drug crime rates for the three crimes are quite different from the corruption perception index with Myanmar appearing to have the lowest crime rate. However, the official crime rates used were for different periods.

The corruption perception index was for the year 2007 while the degree of crime results were for the years 2001 and 2002. The differences could be due to changes of factors such as poverty level, political status as well as the justice system, which resulted in the change in the crime levels. Additionally, the difference could be due to the extent of interviewing done to establish the corruption perception index, which could lead to erroneous results. In addition, willingness of people to report crime differs and can affect the overall results (United Nations Web).

Works CitedTransparency International. Corruption Perceptions Index 2007. 2007.Web. 13 Sep 2012 .United Nations. Eighth United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 2001 - 2002. 2002. Web. 13 Sep 2012 .